Thousands of Mobile Money agents to lose jobs

Thousands of Mobile Money agents in Ghana could soon lose their jobs due to the introduction of mobile money interoperability.

The mobile money interoperability platform allows subscribers to transfer funds from one mobile network to the other seamlessly as well as their banks.

About 1.8 million transactions have so far been recorded since the introduction of the MMI last week.

Statistics reveal that mobile money agents increased from 136,000 in 2016 to 194,000 in 2017.

The CEO of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlements Systems, Archie Hesse believes the agents must be innovative and adapt to changing trends if they really want to stay in business.

“In business you either renovate. I still see that the mobile money agent will have a role, electronic fund in the village, interoperability is there I still have to go to the agent to convert the cash to electronic then I can send but I will not need the agent if I have the electronic fund.

“So I can see that overtime the business will be changing and they also need to scale themselves appropriately to continue to stay in business but I don’t believe that there’s any business in the 1920s that are still the same. So businesses look at ways and means of adapting ways to suit the current trend”.